Since we had withdrew from our role as organisers of the MICCOS Drift Challenge , Ivan Lim from Binter Singapore and I had decided to participate in supporting in the event whom had newly appointed organiser, Feinto-D on the helm.Ariff did not compete in this event as he had gone off to salvage his placings in the GRA event held in Sepang on the same day.
As mentioned earlier ,our withdrawal from the event was due to the absences of safety equipments , like water barrier, tire barrier, cones, fire extinguishers and etc and due to that, the newly appointed organisers had to alter the course to a much smaller course which in turn is a much slower course with much more run off space. This was a wise move as at the edge of the course , there’s a steep downward slope which we fear might cause cars to come barrelling down if they were to veer off the course!!
Binter’s Toyota Chaser was sent to Malaysia earlier for Ariff to work on the handling set up of the car
Due to other commitments, we had missed out the Saturday’s practice,but we arrived early enough on Sunday morning to get enough practice .
Driver’s briefing by the judges Loyai (Team GT-Radial) and Along (Team Toyo).
After briefing ,we were then given another 30 minutes of practice.
As we were in Group C. We had enough time to drop by the cafeteria at Maeps Exhibition Hall D to grab our lunch. It was full of stalls with local flavors.
After lunch break, it was time for qualifying . I had some great practice runs earlier but when it comes to qualifying the weather changed tremendously .As the temperature drop so did my grip level. Due to my lack of experience with the Asymetrics tires, I had trouble adjusting to the tire and totally ruin my runs thus not being able to get into the best 16.
As for Ivan Lim, he was very consistent with his runs and he qualified at 5th place. Since not qualifying, I became his spotter during the tandem battle to help him as he was going against driver’s that he had no experience with.
Unfortunately, the rain came pouring down heavily immediately after the best 16 driver’s briefing. . Due to bad water irrigation on the car park, the track is all flooded so the competition was held up.
It took almost 45 minutes for the rain to stop and all the top 16 drivers were given some runs to get use with the wet surface of the track.
Ivan had to go against with Kevin Rajoo on his 180sx at best 16, with such , which he managed to stick by Kevin and won the round , credit to the great performance of the Goodyear Eagle RS-Sport on his Binter Goodyear Toyota Chaser for the win
At best 8, Ivan had to go against with Tan Tat Wei from Team Bridgestone in his Toyota AE86.A small and tight track , along with wet surface tends to favour the smaller cars, especially when it comes to tandem battles. Both of them had good runs but the judges gave an extra advantage point for Tat Wei for keeping closer to Ivan while following. Though losing out at best 8 ,Ivan did a great job drifting his newly setup Chaser! He was alot more precise and confident while drifting.
Having qualified 5th and losing out on best 8th earned him 5th place overall in this competition. Great job Ivan!